Mike Ekeler, Tennessee's special teams coordinator and outside linebackers coach, appeared on the Vol Network's "Vol Calls" radio show Wednesday night to discuss the Vols' special teams coming off their season-opening rout of Ball State last week and preview their game at Pittsburgh. The Vols are set to take on the 17th-ranked Panthers on Saturday afternoon at Acrisure Stadium.
Ekeler followed second-year Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel in appearing on Wednesday's radio show. The appearance allowed Ekeler to discuss the Vols' group of veteran specialists, how he identifies players who might be effective at covering kickoffs and punts, the significance of junior defensive back Tamarion McDonald being elevated from special-teams duty last year to Tennessee's starting lineup on defense and how the Vols' special teams performed in last week's opener, among other topics.
Saturday's showdown between the 24th-ranked Vols (1-0) and Pitt (1-0) — which again is being called "The Johnny Majors Classic" in honor of the former Tennessee and Pittsburgh coaching legend, who died in 2020 — is scheduled to kick off at 3:30 Eastern time. It will be televised on ABC.
The Panthers, who are coming off a 38-31 win over West Virginia last week, held off Tennessee for a 41-34 victory in last year's meeting at Neyland Stadium.
Here's everything Ekeler said during his appearance on "Vol Calls" on Wednesday night.
ON GETTING READY FOR SATURDAY’S GAME
“Man, just excited. I mean, real excited for the opportunity to go into Pittsburgh. And what a great challenge, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
ON TENNESSEE HAVING A GROUP OF EXPERIENCED, VETERAN SPECIALISTS
“We’ve got a great room. We’ve got a great room. We’ve got a good influx of young guys in there, too. Shoot, it always helps having them back, and they’ve got a lot of game experience. And then we’ve got a lot of young guys. We’ve got five true freshmen that went out there and covered on different units for us last week, so we’re bringing along a lot of new guys, as well.”
ON HOW HE GOES ABOUT PICKING PLAYERS TO COVER PUNTS AND KICKOFFS
“It’s really pretty easy. I mean, you look ‘em in the eye, and if they kind of look at you cross-eyed and they’ve got a chipped tooth or something, then they’re a prime candidate. I mean, if they look like a quarterback, no way — they ain’t got a shot.”
ON WHETHER IT HELPS PLAYERS BUY INTO SPECIAL TEAMS TO SEE TAMARION MCDONALD STARTING AFTER PLAYING SPECIAL TEAMS LAST YEAR
“You hit the nail on the head. And you look at Christian Charles. I mean, he’s our starting corner — same way. I mean, he made huge plays. Look at 'Neiko Slaughter playing a ton on defense.
“ All those guys got in the game early, got their feet wet and went out there and made plays, so the game slowed down for them, and they got in on defense. It was like, ‘No big deal. We’ve been on it all day.’ You get 30 plays a game on special teams, and you’re out there running around with your hair on fire making full-speed decisions and wrecking shop. So, shoot, it translates over to offense and defense. Really, the direction the whole program’s taking — Heup’s in every meeting. We sit down after every practice. He evaluates every drill we do, every technique. It’s been a great situation here.”
ON TENNESSEE HAVING A CLEAN PERFORMANCE ON SPECIAL TEAMS AGAINST BALL STATE
“I don’t know about that. We left a whole bunch of meat on the bone there. Oh, man. We were not near (perfect). We’ve got a long way to go. We’ve got a great opportunity this week to make some huge strides, which you should between Game One and Game Two. Like I said, we had five new guys out there — five true freshmen who’d never played a college football game on our kickoff team, kickoff-return team, and got a little taste of it. And it was kind of summer ball — some good, some bad.”
ON HOW MUCH FULL-SPEED WORK TEAMS CAN DO TO PREPARE FOR KICKOFFS DURING PRACTICES
“We do a little bit, but we do a lot more drill work and pod work and then put it all together. To be honest with you, it’s a lot more simulation than it is true live. And we probably run less than anyone in the country on teams, but we get our work done.”
ON HOW HE KNOWS WHETHER A PLAYER WILL TACKLE WELL AND WHETHER TENNESSEE TACKLES MUCH DURING SPECIAL-TEAMS DRILLS
“No. But, I mean, you can get a great idea in all the drills we do, and you get a great idea with everything we do. I mean, guys who are going to put their face on people and the guys who aren’t.”
ON TENNESSEE FINDING A WAY TO REPLACE THE RETURN YARDS VELUS JONES JR. PROVIDED LAST SEASON
“You’ve got Tre (Flowers) and you’ve got Dee Williams, and Jimmy Holiday. You’ve got Squirrel White. You’ve got a lot of different guys. The unique thing about special teams: You look at Game One for us, and we had one opportunity to put our return unit out there. We were at midfield a bunch of times, just by the nature of the game, the way it was. And it was fourth-and-short situations toward midfield, so we had a lot of punt safe last game — more than I’ve ever had in my career.
“ But the thing about special teams is you can’t force it. Some games you’re going to be in a situation where you have a great opportunity to really affect the game, and other games you can affect it in certain ways, but it’s not real flashy. You’ve just got to play clean.”
ON HOW HARD IT IS TO BE PATIENT IN A GAME WHEN SPECIAL-TEAMS UNITS DON’T GET A CHANCE TO MAKE FLASHY PLAYS
“Oh, I like to force things. Hey, I’m like the little devil on Heup’s shoulder. ‘Hey, let’s do that. Let’s do that,’ and he’s like, ‘No, no, no, no.’”
ON HOW MUCH FILM HE STUDIES DURING THE OFFSEASON TO FIND FAVORABLE MATCHUPS AND OPPORTUNITIES ON SPECIAL TEAMS
“It’s no different than defense. I mean, you look at defense, and I’ve been doing that for 20 years. And you break down protections on third down, and you look ahead and you see what their weaknesses are. You see how you can attack them, and then you look at technique, so it’s kind of a mixture of both. But it’s strategic the way we do it. I mean, you’re attacking protections and attacking technique.”
ON HOW MANY COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAMES LAST WEEK WERE DECIDED BY SPECIAL-TEAMS MISTAKES
“No question. The other interesting thing about special teams — like, Heup compares it to being a quarterback. A quarterback can go out there and have a great game and throw a pick at the end and, man, that’s all anybody talks about. You go out and have a great game on special teams for 32 plays and have one play where you give something up, and everybody’s like, ‘You stink, man.’ Our philosophy: You just look up at the end of the year. You put your head down, you go to work and you play your tail off, you coach your tail off. At the end of the year, you look up and you have certain goals that you want to reach, and that’s when you decide how you are.”
ON THE EXCITEMENT OF RUNNING BACK A KICKOFF OR MAKING ANOTHER TYPE OF BIG PLAY ON SPECIAL TEAMS
“Oh, yeah. You want to have game-changing plays. That’s the objective. But, again, you can’t force them.”
ON WHETHER HE PLAYED ON SPECIAL TEAMS DURING HIS PLAYING CAREER
“I could play a little bit.”
ON WHETHER HE COVERED KICKS
“I did it all, man. I was the damn special teams player of the year nationally. Come on, man. I had a good time. I had a good time. And that’s what’s kind of cool for me. I mean, I’ve been in these guys’ shoes.
“ I mean, I can relate to them, and I know what they’re feeling, what they’re thinking. Call it the nut squad — you’ve got to be one, man.”
ON TEAMS NOT BEING ABLE TO HAVE SUCCESS WITHOUT BEING GOOD ON SPECIAL TEAMS
“Yeah. Tom Osborne said way back in the day when I was playing, he said, ‘You can really judge a football team by their special teams,’ and I believe in that. And that’s what we believe in, and it starts with Heup. And we talk about ‘ABT’ — all ‘bout technique — for ‘ABM,’ all ‘ bout money.”
ON TENNESSEE’S SPECIAL TEAMS NEEDING TO BE GOOD AGAINST PITT
“We don’t want to be good, now. Good’s average.”
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